DVD

[Rasputin]

Polar Express 2-Disc Edition

Crisis of faith: a period of intense doubt and internal conflict about one's preconceived beliefs requiring a singular decision to either reconcile the cause of the doubt or abandon the belief. Such crises can take many forms. Religious: doubting the validity of one’s faith due to the realization that there are and have been thousands of organized religions all claiming to be the true faith. Philosophical: doubting the existence of God in light of personal tragedy...

[Rasputin]

Top DVD titles

1. Madagascar
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
3. Stealth
4. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
5. Skeleton Key
6. Friends the Complete Tenth Season
7. Christmas with the Kranks
8. Sound of Music
9. Cinderella
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

[Rasputin]

Cinderella Man: 2-Disc Collector's Edition

It may not bring anything new to the table of sports films, but there's no denying that Ron Howard's Cinderella Man (2005) is a well-crafted drama that plays its cards well. Based upon the career of Depression-era boxer James J. Braddock (1905-1974), Howard's film also focuses on the once-proud fighter's darkest years with his family in the slums of New Jersey. Braddock (portrayed skillfully by Russell Crowe) was used to earning thousands per purse in his prime, but the Great Depression reduced him to an injured fighter who struggled to pay the electric bill.

Needless to say, times were pretty tough.

[Rasputin]

Airplane and War of The Worlds

Steven Spielberg surprised everyone last summer. His remake of The War of the Worlds is an intelligent and engrossing updating of the original H.G. Wells book. It delivers its invasion theme with an intensity seen in few previous science fiction movies.

That's really quite an accomplishment for several reasons. When Hollywood remakes a Sci Fi classic the result is usually a disaster, as with 1986's Invaders from Mars or 1988's The Blob. The remakes fail because fantasies once perfect for a particular time and place are no longer relevant. It's almost like telling a bedtime story to adults - not only are they bored with the same plot, they miss Mom and Dad's bedtime manner. The rare movie that improves on the original -- Cronenberg's The Fly is the best example - re-thinks the original concept for a new era. The 1958 Fly functions well enough when regarded from a certain nostalgic angle. The '85 Fly is a much more complex fusion of fears and anxieties.

The new War of the Worlds shows Spielberg doing what he does best, pulling new brilliance out of established genres. When we first heard of the remake our initial response was that the Invasion from Space movie had already been tapped out by Independence Day, an ultimately empty spectacle that baldly ripped off themes and even specific visuals from the George Pal 1953 version. Spielberg goes the opposite way, embracing the events and atmosphere of the 1898 book. H.G. Wells' diary-like account of life under the heel of Martian invaders can be interpreted as the author's fear of 20th century wars fought with terrible technological weapons. This War of the Worlds is about much more than monsters from space -- it imagines the terror of war already suffered by much of the rest of the world being visited upon our 'complacent and secure' homeland.

[Rasputin]

The Top Ten Anime DVDs of 2005

1) Samurai 7

2) Ghost in the Shell: SAC (2nd Gig)

3) Fullmetal Alchemist

4) Planetes

5) Samurai Champloo

6) Hayao Miyazaki

7) Appleseed

8 Gankutsuou -The Count of Monte Cristo

9) Gunslinger Girl

10) Area 88

[Rasputin]

Serenity

INTRODUCTION:

"Firefly went on the air a few years ago and was instantly hailed by critics as one of the most cancelled shows of the year. It was ignored and abandoned, and the story should end there ... but it doesn't."

In the Fall of 2002, the creator of Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer brought a new vision to the small screen in the form of Firefly. Set in a distant future where overpopulation has forced mankind to colonize other planets, Joss Whedon's new television series blended science fiction ideas with classic western storytelling as it followed the colorful crew of Serenity. Performing whatever odd jobs would net payment, some more legal than others, the crew of this small starship struggled to carve out a living, free from the restrictions of an increasingly meddlesome interstellar government. With clever writing and a remarkably talented cast, Firefly showed signs of potential greatness even more quickly than its predecessors, but it never had a fair chance to get off the ground as FOX executives buried the show on Friday nights with little fanfare and illogically aired the episodes in a nonlinear order that both confused and annoyed prospective viewers. While 11 of those episodes ultimately aired in the United States, the series was marked DOA the moment it hit the schedule and was destined to disappear to the ever growing vault of promising but short-lived FOX series.

[Rasputin]

Savant's picks for 2005:

Danger: Diabolik

The Cat People

Major Dundee

The Purple Plain

The Hammer Horror Series

The Deceivers

King Kong 2-disc Special Edition

The Mysterians

The Narrow Margin

Bambi

[Rasputin]

The World

The World is a well made, compassionate and ultimately tragic Chinese film that few people saw last year. Directed by Zhangke Jia it is primarily about a group of performers who dance and perform in a park called the Beijing World Park.
The park features scaled-down replicas of such landmarks as The Eiffel Tower, The Taj Majal, St Mark's Square, The London Bridge and even downtown Manhattan. At first it is amusing to see all the sites so close to one another; the Pyramids are adjacent to Taj Majal and Manhattan is a stone's throw from London. Yet as the film goes on it becomes apparent that the park is an odd and somewhat disquieting place. It becomes purposely central to the film's somewhat depressed and empty feeling.

Each of the characters is in conflict with each other or with their fate. There is a twenty-something woman dancer named Tao (Zhao Tao) who cannot decide if she loves her boyfriend Taisheng [Chen Tai-sheng) - who is a security guard in the park. There is a couple that always fights yet realize that they cannot live without one another. And there is a group of Russian immigrants who have become virtual slaves to a man who has taken their passports.

From the plot alone one would suspect a soap opera of sorts. But director Jia utilizes a very slow, distancing, yet unmanipulative style that has each storyline crisscrossing the other. In many ways his style is one that has come to associate with some of the better art house directors working in Asia these days such as Korean director Hong Sang-soo or Taiwan's Hsiao-hsien Hou and Ming-liang Tsai. And like those directors the primary theme in these films is about alienation that comes with capitalism's tyranny of choice.

[Rasputin]

2006 Sundance & Slamdance Festival Report

It's hard to believe Sundance is here again. It feels like almost yesterday that I was walking out of the screening of Me And You And Everyone We Know , hearing people buzz about Hustle and Flow and hearing raves about Mad Hot Ballroom. The graduating class of 2005 did so well this past year that the 2006 fests have even more importance and attention being paid to them. So I'm excited to bring you coverage again of both the Sundance and Slamdance Film Fests. This time around, I'm in Park City for a full week, so I'll be bringing you coverage of even more films.

Here is the first batch of films I've seen. I'll be posting a second installment with another round of reviews soon. I've stack ranked these films in order of preference and noted the films which played at the Slamdance film fest.

The Descent

Adams Æbler (Adams Apple)

The Tribe

Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon

Neo Ned

Battle in Heaven

Call of Cthulhu

[Rasputin]

Popular Eggs

1. Pirates of the Caribbean
2. The Star Wars Trilogy
3. WWE - The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition
5. Rush in Rio
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: Extended Edition
7. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King: Extended Edition (New Line)
8. Finding Nemo
9. The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season
10. Futurama: Volume 3

[Rasputin]

In Stores This Week

Eraserhead
• Five Heartbeats
• Transporter
• Underworld
• Man on Fire
• Hide & Seek
• Hustle & Flow
• Doogie Howser, M.D. - Season Three
• Short Films of David Lynch

[Rasputin]

Popular DVD jan06

1. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
2. Lord of War: 2 Disc Special Edition
3. Bambi II
4. Sexual Intelligence
5. Elizabethtown
6. The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection
7. Election
8. Alien Nation - The Complete Series
9. When a Stranger Calls
10. The Legend of Zorro

[Rasputin]

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

American moviegoers who bemoan the quality of film today obviously aren’t aware of what’s coming out of Asia. Some very twisted and visually stunning work is being cranked out in China, South Korea, and Hong Kong. And while some may say, “Well, duh!” to that statement, I say not everybody has heard of Fruit Chan, Park Chanwook, and Takashi Miike. And by the way, I’m not even referring to some of the lusher, more romantic, and exotic work by Yimou Zhang, or Wong Kar-Wai. I just mean the weird stuff.



For an easy two-hour primer on the works of Fruit Chan, Park Chanwook, and Takashi Miike, check out the recent Three Extremes, in which the three directors each contribute a short film. For pure evil, I thought the prolific Miike was the reigning champ. Granted, there are two things about Miike that lessen him in my mind: 1) he cranks out so many films that maybe the good ones are only good because the law of averages dictates it, and 2) many of his films depend on the last 20 minutes, where some seriously insane crap goes down (for proof of that theory, check out Gozu and Audition). Anyway, back to pure evil. I used to think Miike had that market cornered, although Fruit Chan’s indefinable Public Toilet earns a spot in the WTF? Hall of Fame. Then I saw Oldboy from Park Chanwook at the Cannes Film Festival. I admit that I came to the Park Chanwook table late, but Oldboy was a good enough introduction to the man and whatever childhood trauma led him to create such a perfect piece of deviltry.

[Rasputin]

Poltergeist: The Legacy - The Complete First Season

Way back when in 1996 a little series called Poltergeist – The Legacy was kinda-sorta spun off from the Poltergeist film series and it lasted three seasons. A lot of the creative team that had revived The Outer Limits around the same time were involved in bringing this supernatural series to life and while it didn't last as long as its fans would have hoped, it had a good run and proved to be a fairly enjoyable series, even if it got lost in the shuffle a bit.

The basic premise behind the series is that a wealthy man named Derek Rayne (played by Derek De Lint) heads up a secret organization called The Legacy who are in charge of keeping the forces of evil at bay and who go about investigating all manner of paranormal and occult related incidents. The work in rather covert ways and answer to no government affiliation of any kind, instead, Rayne bank rolls everything himself to ensure that politics don't come into play with the way that they operate. Derek's father was himself an archeologist who was killed in a mine while the two of them were searching for a fifth sepulcher that, when combined with the four others of its kind, would allow the gates of Hell to open up and bring all kinds of crazed ghastly apparitions to life. Along with a psychic named Alex Moreau (Robbi Chong), a former special ops agent named Nick Boyle (Martin Cummins), and Julia Walker (Jordan Bayne), they are the only thing that stands between mankind and the ultimate evil, known as The Darkside.

[Rasputin]

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman: The Complete Second Season

Okay, it was cute for a while, but now I’m over it.When I reviewed the first season of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman last year, I did my damnedest to figure out how the Superman mythos was being enhanced by having Clark Kent (Dean Cain) and Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher) fawning over each other for an hour at a time on network TV.